Publisher is insisting Elder Scrolls: Legends progress will carry over, regardless of platform
Bethesda Softworks’ top spokesman made a remarkably candid comment to Game Informer yesterday: Platforms that don’t allow cross-console play may be cut out of The Elder Scrolls: Legends ’ launch later this year. Though Pete Hines did not specifically name PlayStation, Sony or the PlayStation 4, there’s no other console presenting any obstruction to cross-platform play.
At QuakeCon 2018, Hines, to Game Informer, said Bethesda’s expectations “are essentially non-negotiable.” The Elder Scrolls: Legends is currently on (and cross-compatible with) Windows PC, Mac, iOS and Android. Hines said Bethesda is still discussing the matter with its platform partners, which basically means Sony.
“We cannot have a game that works one way across everywhere else except for on this one thing,” Hines told Game Informer. “We can’t be talking about one version of Legends, where you take your progress with you, and another version where you stay within that ecosystem or its walled off from everything else. That is counter to what the game has been about.
At its E3 2018 show, Bethesda Softworks announced that The Elder Scrolls: Legends was coming to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One later this year. Bethesda specified that progress made in the PC and mobile editions of The Elder Scrolls: Legends would carry over to consoles, via the player’s Bethesda.net account.
“I’m just telling you that’s our stance. That is our intent. And that is our message,” Hines said to Game Informer. “Not specific to anyone in particular, but to everyone we are talking about. This is 100 percent clear. This is what we are doing, what we need, and what we intend.”
Ordinarily, this wouldn’t seem to be a problem, as PlayStation 4 games have cooperated with PC versions editions in the past. But Hines seemed rather clear that any console edition of The Elder Scrolls: Legends must cooperate with a user’s Bethesda.net account, which will encompass play on the Switch and Xbox One. And that kind of thing, as we know, caused big problems earlier this summer, when Epic Games Fortnite accounts used on PlayStation 4 were later locked out of that account on Xbox One and the Switch.
This beef has been simmering for a while. In early July, Bethesda Game Studios’ Todd Howard, the director of the forthcoming Fallout 76, bluntly called Sony an unhelpful holdout on the subject of cross platform play. Fallout 76 is still launching on that console, as well as Windows PC and Xbox One. Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, the Twitch star and Fortnite super-streamer, this week called out Sony’s refusal to allow cross-console play. “I think [Sony] can make a huge statement in gaming by allowing cross-platform across the board,” Blevins told Polygon on Thursday.
Sony hasn’t changed its posture on cross-console play, beyond acknowledging the trouble in a statement from Shawn Layden, the president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, back in July. Microsoft and Nintendo then teamed up in a remarkable cross promotion for Minecraft showing players on Xbox One and Nintendo Switch enjoying the game together.
